Reading series invites queer writers to dig through LGBT ephemera

Participants of the first 2018 ‘Show Us Your Spines’ storytelling event talks to an audience at the San Francisco Main Library. The second event happens April 12.”

Photo: Juliana Delgado Lopera

For 14 years, Radar Productions has been hosting a renowned reading series, giving queer people a chance to tell queer stories in a format that wasn’t always open to the marginalized.

This year, the group is keeping the tradition alive, but switching it up a bit. Rather than a monthly reading series, organizers have pared it down to just six for the year. The extra time will allow participants, all of whom are queer and trans people of color, to take advantage of a one-month residency.

The residency gives them access to the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center archives, where they’ll dig through queer ephemera and find inspiration for a piece that, eventually, they’ll present to an audience. The event on Thursday, April 12, is the second of the half dozen planned readings and features Aria Sa’id, Vernon Keeve III, Itoro Udofia and Yeva Johnson.

— Ryan Kost

Show Us Your Spines: 6-8 p.m. Thursday, April 12. Free. The James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center, third floor of the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin St., S.F. https://sfpl.org

Ryan Kost writes about arts and entertainment for the San Francisco Chronicle. He's culture obsessed and constantly on the look out for interesting things happening in and around the Bay Area and loves digging up an unexpected and untold story.

Previously, he lived in Portland, Ore. where he wrote for The Oregonian and The Associated Press, covering state and city politics. He helped launch PolitiFact Oregon, a fact-checking website aimed at keeping politicians truthful, and won a number of journalism awards during his time there.